1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a structure for and method of welding airport concrete steel mesh, wherein each transversely extending reinforcing rod in the steel mesh is separately welded to all the longitudinally extending spaced apart reinforcing rods simultaneously at the intersections of the transverse rod and longitudinal rods, the separate transversely extending rods are automatically fed onto the longitudinally extending reinforcing rods at a welding position, and the welded transverse and longitudinal rods are automatically indexed away from the welding position and wherein additional longitudinal rods are placed on the initial longitudinal rods as the transverse rods are welded thereto and are automatically moved into welding position when all required transverse rods are welded to the initial longitudinal rods whereby the welding of concrete steel mesh sections is continuous.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior automatic mesh welders have usually not been capable of welding heavy reinforcing rods such as 3/4" reinforcing rods into steel mesh such as that required for airport concrete runway reinforcement. Further, wherein steel mesh welding has been accomplished in the past, welding has been limited as to spacing between the reinforcing members due to welding gun diameter limitations, and welds have not always been satisfactory due to low welding gun pressures available. Wherein satisfactory mesh welding has been accomplished in the past, the equipment necessary therefor and the methods used have been complicated and therefore uneconomical. Often such equipment has required down time during which rods to be welded into mesh has been loaded into the equipment, so that continuous automatic welding of heavy concrete steel mesh has been impossible.